


The Guardian Angel Job

by sarahworm



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Heists, speedster nonsense, wacky demonic plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28601835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahworm/pseuds/sarahworm
Summary: Jess Chambers summons some help. Zauriel did not expect to be roped into a heist against Captain Boomerang, but hey, there have been weirder days.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The Guardian Angel Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AgenderAnarky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgenderAnarky/gifts).



> Lgbtincomics gift exchange for @worldsgreatest on tumblr!

Zauriel blinked.

They were in a bedroom.

A teenager’s bedroom, by the looks of it.

The (presumed) owner was standing and looking at them. Dark skin, a shock of white hair, a red and yellow suit. Oh. A hero.

“Do I know you?” Zauriel asked.

“Nope!” The teenager whisked over to another side of the room and back. A speedster, then. “I’m Jess. And you are?”

Zauriel was nonplussed. “Didn’t you summon me?” they asked. They still hadn’t figured out _how_ that had happened, exactly, but the result was self-evident.

The speedster flicked away again and pulled out a desk chair, offering to Zauriel. “I used a guardian angel spell. And, well, you seem to fit the bill, but I don’t know your name.”

“You used a _what_?”

Jess handed over a small slip of paper. Zauriel looked at it, sighed, and sat. “Kid, I don’t even recognize this,” they said. “Where did you get it?”

“A friend of a friend.” When Zauriel just looked at them, they smiled a little and said nothing. Zauriel briefly thought about leaving, but was pretty sure that the spell would not be pleased about that.

Fine. “I’m Zauriel. And yes, I have been a guardian angel. But never through being…conjured in this way. So, what led you to use that spell?”

Jess grinned and stuck out a hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Zauriel! I have a request. I need you to help me steal something – well, to help me steal something back.”

***

The angel sighed a lot, was the first thing Jess noticed about them. Which, they couldn’t really blame them, having been yanked unexpectedly through reality by a teenager and everything. Jess felt a little bad about that, but they were desperate. And besides, they were sure this would be over super fast. Naturally.

“What are we stealing?” the angel asked, resignedly.

“Stealing _back._ A trophy.”

Zauriel raised an eyebrow. Jess dug a toe into the carpet. They had not been looking forward to this part. “It has a bottle of speed serum hidden in the bottom of it.”

“You hid a bottle of speed serum in a trophy.”

“So, it’s a random track trophy that a friend gave me as a joke, and I thought it was a perfect place to hide something valuable, because what use does a speedster have with a track trophy? But then Captain Boomerang stole it. And I already tried to get it back once, I scoped out the hideout and everything, but he set up some kind of anti-speedster laser and when I went in I smacked into it and had to get out of there.”

Zauriel folded their arms. “So you’ve brought me to help you steal your trophy back from Captain Boomerang.”

“…Yes?”

“I’ll have you know, this is the dumbest mission I’ve ever been assigned, and I come from heaven,” Zauriel said. “But tell me what we need to do.”

***

“I’m not bringing down a building for your trophy,” Zauriel said. The kid had presented their plan for the heist, and there was some disagreement on the exact methods.

Once they’d acquiesced to going, Jess cheerfully presented the various obstacles they would encounter. The hideout was accessible through an entrance on an alley. Inside, there would be an inner door with a lock that Jess said they could take care of. And that would lead to a chamber with the trophy, guarded by that anti-speedster laser that Captain Boomerang, of all people, had somehow gotten ahold of.

Jess wanted Zauriel to use their sonic scream to take it out. Zauriel was pointing out that that method was liable to wreck more than just the laser.

“Besides,” they continued, “it might put your speed serum at risk of breaking. We don’t want that.”

“There’s not much of it. If it breaks, no one else will get it.”

Zauriel looked at them. “Are you…not supposed to have that serum, maybe?”

Jess looked away and didn’t answer.

“Besides,” Zauriel added, “I am not taking the risk of one drop of that serum flying away and infecting a cockroach or something. I can’t have speedy cockroaches on my conscience.”

“Fair point,” Jess admitted.

“So,” Zauriel said, “we’ll plan to get at that laser a different way. For one thing, maybe it won’t work on me. I can’t imagine Captain Boomerang was anticipating you digging out a very suspect spell and hiring a guardian angel.”

***

“Well, they weren’t here last time,” Jess said, stopping short and peering around the corner. Two of (presumably) Captain Boomerang’s goons were standing in the alley outside the door to the hideout. “He must have upped security.”

“Clearly,” Zauriel said. “Nevermind, I’ll take care of this. Stay here and get ready to move fast once the door is open.”

“What are you going to do?”

The angel didn’t answer, just stepped around the corner and began walking towards the men. As Jess watched, they did… _something_ that made them look, all of a sudden, like the full force of the heavenly host that they were. Jess thought that it wasn’t just that they’d stood up straighter and spread their wings. It was like they bristled with energy and power.

The two goons saw them. “Hey, this area’s restricted,” one said, but falteringly.

“I have an appointment with your boss,” Jess heard Zauriel say. They couldn’t see their face anymore, but the words sounded like they should have been delivered in a proclamation, stamped in gold on a holy scroll.

To Jess’ surprise – or, well, they weren’t really surprised after hearing that _voice_ – the guard gave a rather weak-willed “sure” and opened the door. Jess dashed forward as fast as they could, whipping past Zauriel and under the guard’s outstretched arm to the room beyond.

The door clicked behind the angel. “That was easy enough,” they said in a normal voice. Jess turned to look at them, and it was just Zauriel again, just as they’d first appeared in Jess’ bedroom.

“Neat trick,” Jess said. Zauriel smiled.

Jess led them to the inner door guarding the room with the trophy. Zauriel paused when they saw the key code. “I didn’t realize it was this kind of lock. How are you getting through it?”

“Oh, I’ll just brute-force it,” Jess said. “It worked last time, but I’m going to assume he changed the password.”

“I would think,” Zauriel said.

Jess began to enter digits, methodically, as fast as their finger would go.

It opened on try number 114.

“There have to be _thousands_ of possible combinations,” Zauriel said, staring. “How did you know you’d get it so fast?”

“Just got lucky,” Jess said, pulling the door open. “Also, I started with the last combination, figured he wouldn’t have changed it alllll that much. People are lazy.”

They entered the last room. The trophy was where Jess remembered it, on a shelf with several other random objects – probably Captain Boomerang’s other scores. And in front of it was a laser wall, forming a bubble over the shelf, keeping speedsters out.

Jess smiled and led the way in. “Now, if you can just get past that –“ they began, but Zauriel cut them off.

“Uh,” the angel announced, looking down at the ground where some kind of sigil was glowing, forming elaborate lines beneath their feet, “I think we have a complication.”

***

Zauriel’s first thought was that they should have seen this coming. Plans never went as you made them, even when dealing with a second-rate rogue like Captain Boomerang.

Their second thought was that it was going to be a pain to get out of. The sigil covered the whole floor of the room, and when Zauriel tried to move their feet, they found that they couldn’t.

Their third thought was that this sort of sigil seemed like something they’d seen before – and that thought was confirmed when the kid grabbed their arm and pointed to a spot on the floor on the other side of the room, where green flames were licking up out of the ground and forming a familiar shape.

“Oh, no,” Zauriel said, disgustedly. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Hello,” said Neron. “It’s been a while.”

“Um,” said Jess, eyes darting around the room at a speed just a touch beyond human, “who is this?”

Neron was chuckling. “I’m no one you need to have heard of, up here,” he said. “But what I am in this moment, speedster, is your savior. You’re not going to be able to break out of that spell on your own. But for just a small price, I’ll let you go.”

“And that price is?” Jess asked nervously.

“Your soul,” said Neron, smiling. “Not permanently. On a loan. I want to study it – I have a theory about speedster souls I want to investigate.”

“Um,” Jess said again, looking at Zauriel, “I have a feeling I shouldn’t take that deal?”

“You shouldn’t,” Zauriel said, blankly. “Neron and I first crossed paths back in my Justice League days. Nothing good ever comes of giving him a soul.” They looked back at Neron. “If you’re after souls, what on Earth are you doing partnering up with Captain Boomerang? That doesn’t seem your style.”

Neron shrugged. “It usually isn’t. But he antagonizes the speedsters, and I didn’t feel in the mood for catching one myself. And best of all, he had already set up this little trap – I believe you already tried to break through once – so we just had to add my accoutrements once he accepted my offer.”

“And what was that offer, out of curiosity?” Zauriel asked.

“Oh, a small cut of the spoils that my work with the souls allows me to achieve.”

“So, that could be nothing,” Jess cut in. “You said you were just experimenting.”

Neron smiled. “And who’s to say what my experiments allowed me to achieve, and what I would have achieved anyway?”

“Oh my god,” Jess said. “So you made him do all the work of bringing the souls to you, and you’ll walk away with the rewards? This is some multi-level marketing bs.”

“You have deeply stupid rogues,” Zauriel said. “So, can we get out of here now?”

“I don’t know, can we?” Jess asked them. “I thought we were stalling for time.”

They were so earnest. “No, I actually did want to hear what his plan was. But now we can leave.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Neron said, and he was smirking as usual, but Zauriel thought he sounded a little deflated. But it wouldn’t matter soon.

“I am,” they replied, drawing Michael’s sword.

The flame sprang to life, Jess gasped, and Neron snarled. “You can’t-” he began.

“Yeah, I can,” Zauriel said, and smashed the sword down into the sigil.

***

The sigil broke at the point of contact and the light emanating from it vanished immediately. Neron started dissolving. Zauriel did not pay attention to him, and Jess couldn’t, either, not when there was a _flaming sword_.

“I didn’t know you could do _that_ ,” they said, awe-struck.

“Well, we only met an hour ago,” Zauriel replied. They took a few steps and swung the sword through the laser. It, too, flickered off.

“Since I already had it out,” Zauriel said to Jess, handing over the trophy. Jess checked the bottom.

“Oh, good, the serum is still in there,” they said.

“The _what_?” Neron’s voice said. He was barely more than a mouth at this point and vanished a moment later.

“If he’s really interested in speedsters, maybe not a great idea for him to know I have this,” Jess said.

Zauriel was pulling out a cell phone. “I concur. Don’t worry, I’ll call up a few friends and let them know Neron is up to something. I mean, he’s always up to something, but still. Are we all done here?”

Jess had almost forgotten about the spell. “I guess,” they said.

Zauriel nodded and turned to go. Jess watched them take a few steps and then dashed up to their side. “Wait.”

Zauriel waited.

“That was _so_ cool,” Jess said, and all of the confusion and apprehension of the last couple minutes seemed to bubble up out of them all at once, in a great wave. “And I just realized I’m starving. Could you stick around a while, and we could get lunch or something, and you could tell me more about the flaming sword and Neron and the Justice League?”

Zauriel paused a moment, and then smiled. “Sure, kid,” they said.

They’d gotten the serum back _and_ they had a new angel mentor. Jess beamed.


End file.
